Obesity remains a serious health problem and it is no secret that many people want to lose weight. Behavioral economists typically argue that “nudges” help individuals with various decisionmaking flaws to live longer, healthier, and better lives. In an article in the new issue of Regulation, Michael L. Marlow discusses how nudging by government differs from nudging by markets, and explains why market nudging is the more promising avenue for helping citizens to lose weight.

Armed with a computer model in 1935, one could probably have written the exact same story on California drought as appears today in the Washington Post some 80 years ago, prompted by the very similar outlier temperatures of 1934 and 2014.

Two long wars, chronic deficits, the financial crisis, the costly drug war, the growth of executive power under Presidents Bush and Obama, and the revelations about NSA abuses, have given rise to a growing libertarian movement in our country – with a greater focus on individual liberty and less government power. David Boaz’s newly released The Libertarian Mind is a comprehensive guide to the history, philosophy, and growth of the libertarian movement, with incisive analyses of today’s most pressing issues and policies.

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Topic: Political Philosophy

If a state’s truth ministry has threatened to prosecute you for something you said during an election campaign, can you sue? Of course, said the unanimous Supreme Court, with what would undoubtedly have been a guffaw if one could be conveyed in a legal opinion. While the Court left it to its lesser brethren to deal further with a law that criminalizes making “false statements” – whatever that means: too many Pinocchios? – about political candidates, the satirical graffiti is clearly on the wall for that Buckeye bunkum.

As Cato’s brief alongside P.J. O’Rourke made clear, allegations, insinuations, “truthiness,” smears, and all that other rigmarole have been part and parcel of American political discourse since time immemorial. Indeed political speech – including lies, so long as they’re not defamatory (for which there are clear legal standards) – resides firmly in the throbbing heart of the First Amendment. It’s farcical to think that a legislature could charge a panel of bureaucrats (like the state election commission here) with enforcing some sort of Marquess of Queensberry debate rules.

While standing is often hard to come by, even the most curmudgeonly jurisprudential sticklers can see that political advocates have to be able to challenge a law that restricts political advocacy – one that’s already been used against them, no less! At the end of the day and in the fullness of time, today was a banner morning for free speech and judicial engagement.

My Daily Caller op-ed today looks at the website of a typical modern politician, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY). His site is designed to impress voters and the media in his district with all the federal benefits he has brought home. Maloney is taking a pork and constituent service approach to gaining reelection.

There are other approaches to electoral success. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has a strategy of championing principles and specific issues that broadly resonate. The detail on Paul’s website is much better than most. Under “Issues,” he describes his general approach to each policy topic and discusses his stands on particular bills. Under “Budget” he provides a 106-page plan to cut spending.

Looking at Rep. Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) website, you can see that he followed neither the pork nor the principled approach. If Cantor brought pork home to his district, he does not do a very good job telling people about it.

Regarding big ideas or describing his positions on issues, Cantor’s congressional website is nearly empty. Unlike most members, he does not even have an “Issues” section to explain his approach to tax reform, the budget, economic growth, civil liberties, energy, or other policies. His website is fluff.

Cantor’s primary defeat seems partly due to a lack of trust, meaning that voters in his district did not really know where he stood on issues or how he would vote. His website seems to have reflected his strategy of not taking hard stands and having few guiding principles. In his district, that ended up being a losing strategy.

(As majority leader, Cantor also runs this website. But for all the resources that office must have, this site is also very fluffy).

I recently had the pleasure of visiting northwest Arkansas. If you have the chance, go—not only to experience the beauty of the Ozarks, but to see the world’s only Walmart convenience store. This store offers groceries, a gas station, and a counter for a local business, Bentonville Butcher & Deli. The difference between Walmart convenience stores and other convenience stores: Walmart prices (read: excitingly low). Those low prices mean that the more these stores spread, the more lives will improve.

I realize that there are ongoing arguments about whether Walmart improves or reduces people’s welfare. For instance, some argue that Walmart reduces the number of jobs in locations where they open, while others find that Walmart creates more jobs overall. Some believe that when Walmart enters a town, competitors are forced to lower worker income or close. Others claim that the benefits of lower prices may result in higher real wages, even in the retail sector. Some write that Walmart costs taxpayers huge sums as their employees receive federal support. Others insist that these programs are operating as intended: boosting employment among low income families who would otherwise be jobless.

While those issues are still debated, one thing is clear: When we have access to cheaper goods, our quality of life improves because we can buy more with the same amount of money. This is especially true for the poor who spend a higher percentage of income on household goods and food. For them, daily savings on these items are necessary for survival. Shopping at Walmart leaves them with more money, which they can use to feed their families, pay for additional tutoring for their children, or work less as they can afford more leisure time. In that way, few forces have improved the lives of Americans, particularly poor Americans, as much as Walmart.

The Washington Post reports that the leaders of the world’s most hierarchical, centralized faith don’t much care for the philosophy most closely aligned with individual liberty. Huh. What gives the Post that idea? Well, the cardinal sometimes referred to as the “vice-pope” just headlined a conference in DC titled “Erroneous Autonomy: The Catholic Case against Libertarianism.” In heaping scorn on those who celebrate free minds and free markets, the conference attendees accused libertarianism of being responsible for “selfies” and of being anti-poor.

And can you blame them? Think of all those notorious selfies by prominent libertarians.

And, really, you have to admit they have a point on that second accusation as well. Consider that when innovation, commerce, and entrepreneurship were unleashed on a mass scale during the Industrial Revolution, poverty went into a sustained decline for the first time in the 200,000 year history of humanity. In just the last fifteen or twenty years, the poverty rate worldwide has been cut in half. And the absolute number of people living in extreme poverty has been falling since 1980. The economics preferred by libertarians–the economics of freedom–has been quite hard on poverty. I mean, if this keeps up, in another few generations, there will hardly be any poor left.

“The man in whose power it might be to find out the means of alleviating the sufferings of the poor would have done a far greater deed than the one who contents himself solely with knowing the exact numbers of poor and wealthy people in society.”

Talking with P. J. about the book, Will Pavia of the Times of London notes (gated page):

I’m not sure [the baby boomers were] better or worse than the current crop of American teenagers, to judge from some of the things they post on YouTube. O’Rourke disagrees. “I would say there has been a considerable improvement in public morality. It’s probably been going on since the anti-slavery movement at the beginning of the 19th century.” He gives the example of his own son, Cliff.

“Admittedly, he goes to a little private day school. You know, a gentle place. I don’t think he’s ever been in a fight nor shown any desire to be. Nor have I seen his friends get in fights; it’s not just him. It’s definitely a less violent world, a more tolerant world.”

Less violence and more tolerance is a pretty good slice of morality. Steven Pinker, author of The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, backs up O’Rourke’s intuition in the New York Times:

It’s easy to focus on the idiocies of the present and forget those of the past. But a century ago our greatest writers extolled the beauty and holiness of war. Heroes like Theodore Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Woodrow Wilson avowed racist beliefs that today would make people’s flesh crawl. Women were barred from juries in rape trials because supposedly they would be embarrassed by the testimony. Homosexuality was a felony. At various times, contraception, anesthesia, vaccination, life insurance and blood transfusion were considered immoral.

Thailand continues its slow motion political implosion. The prime minister has been ousted and a new election has been scheduled for July 20, but the latter will settle nothing unless traditional ruling elites are willing to accept a government run by their opponents. If not, the country risks a violent explosion.

Bangkok’s politics long leaned authoritarian. However, in 2001 telecommunications executive Thaksin Shinawatra campaigned as a populist, winning the votes of Thailand’s neglected rural poor to become prime minister.

Instead of figuring out how to better appeal to the popular majority, his opponents organized the so-called People’s Alliance for Democracy which launched protests to topple his government. The military ousted the traveling Thaksin in 2006 and tried him in absentia for alleged corruption. The generals then rewrote the constitution and called new elections.